At the event, which was billed as a conversation about stem cell research, Clinton both condemned the Bush administration's insistence on forbidding research it deems unethical and portrayed the issue as one that transcends partisan politics.
She couched her criticism in an overall attack on what she termed Bush's misuse of science.
"For the past six years, science has been under siege in Washington," she said. "The administration has manipulated science and politicized scientific advisory panels."
Not once did Clinton mention her fellow contenders for the Democratic nomination. And only once did she mention any Republican candidates, whom she chastised for not believing in evolution. Recent polls put Clinton in the lead in New Hampshire, with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina trailing in second and third place respectively.
Instead, Clinton set her sights on the Bush administration, which she said has turned Washington, D.C., into "an evidence-free zone."
"We've got to get back to looking to evidence-based decision making that I believe should be at the root of our democracy," she said.
In an appeal to both the left and the right, Clinton argued that funding stem cell research, which could help treat a range of illnesses, is an "extraordinary pro-life position, to try to give life to people with diseases."
As is now common practice in the modern campaign stop, several guests joined Clinton in front of a photo-op-ready backdrop that read "investing in the cures of tomorrow."
Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, the associate chief of neurology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, explained how promising research might help patients of his afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease, if it were not for federal guidelines prohibiting the funding of research.
"My patients are not all Democrats, not all supporters of Hillary Clinton," he said. "But they all feel strongly about this issue."
Antrim, N.H., resident Laura Clark, 23, who was left paralyzed after a spinal chord injury, said she was frustrated by restrictions on stem cell research. She appeared with her mother, who Clinton introduced as a "registered Republican."
Ten-year-old Alex Walter of Londonderry, N.H., appeared on stage with his father, who was advertised on a press release handed to reporters as, again, a "registered Republican."
Walter has type 1 diabetes and, by his father's count, has undergone 22,000 finger-prick blood tests since he was diagnosed with the disease at age four.
The event underscored the machine-like precision with which Clinton's campaign is managed. As Walter's father told the emotional story of his son's diagnosis, for example, campaign staffers in pinstriped suits typed furiously into their Blackberries at the back of the room.
Clinton's appearance also contrasted with Obama's recent rally in front of the Rockefeller Center, which drew thousands of supporters. Statewide polls, however, place Clinton 14 percentage points in front of Obama for the Democratic presidential primary.
The audience, which included former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin and multiple researchers and doctors from DHMC, seemed to support Clinton. No questions were hard-ball, and Clinton's anti-Bush one-liners were consistently met with roaring applause. Most of the attendees appeared middle-aged and above, though several students -- most of whose classmates were off campus as Dartmouth is not in session -- attended the rally.
In a question-and-answer session, Scot Parsley '09 asked Clinton to link her support for stem-cell research with a change in immigration laws that would allow more scientists in that field to enter the United States. Clinton said she was hopeful a compromise on an immigration bill could soon be reached in the Senate.
And then, after her aides signaled to her that the event was over, Clinton halted the questions.
"I'll come back, we'll talk some more about this."
Indeed, Clinton's appearance was already a sort of homecoming to Dartmouth.
"The first time I came here, way back in the 1960s, was for a blind date," she said, reminiscing upon her Wellesley College days with laughter. "And I came back afterwards."
